EMOTIONAL AGILITY

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T H E B O OK Emotional Agility

By Susan David

With Emotional Agility, business consultant and psychologist Dr Susan

David has created a game-changing guide for anyone who wants to live
their best life.

IN T RODUC TION If you’re ‘emotionally rigid’, you’re blind to new experiences and
possibilities. You’ll find yourself stuck on the same path, even though it has
made you unhappy for years. In her book, Dr David explains how to
embrace emotional agility and make your feelings work for you instead of
against you.

This book is full of thoroughly researched detail as well as amusing

anecdotes as it explains how you can live your best life.

Emotional Agility is a journey through yourself and an invaluable lesson on

how to make that self better.

“Courage is not an absence of fear; courage is fear walking.”

“The most effective way to transform your life, therefore, is not by quitting
your job and moving to an ashram, but, to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, by
5 B E ST QUOTES doing what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

“In looking for the right places to make these tiny changes, there are three
broad areas of opportunity. You can tweak your beliefs—or what
psychologists call your mindset; you can tweak your motivations; and you
can tweak your habits. When we learn how to make small changes in
each of these areas, we set ourselves up to make profound, lasting change
over the course of our lives.”

“People frequently die in fires or crash landings because they try to

escape through the same door they used when they entered.”

“Who’s in charge—the thinker or the thought?” Are we managing our own

lives according to our own values and what is important to us, or are we
simply being carried along by the tide?”

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1 . R IG I DIT Y VS AGI LI T Y

Emotional rigidity means that you are stuck in your ideas and emotions.
Picture a Naval officer demanding a lighthouse change course without
8 B IG IDE AS realising it wasn’t a ship. The belief was that his vessel had right of way but
such rigid thinking could have led to catastrophe! Adopting agility in your
emotions is more likely to steer you on the right path and allow you to be
flexible when you need to be.

2 . HOOK E D

Dr David describes the ‘hook’ that Hollywood scripts use to inspire interest.
The hook is the basic premise that is there to lure in the audience and to
keep them interested. In our own everyday lives, a ‘hook’ is a thought or
emotion that draws us in and keeps us preoccupied. These hooks are often
drawn from simple facts that we distort through our own evaluations and
worries. For instance, thinking about school may lead to thinking ‘I never
get the marks I want’. We can all too easily learn to live by these hooks and
they are often extremely counter-productive.

The four most common hooks are:

1. Thought blaming: - “I thought I’d embarrass myself, so I didn’t go.”

2. Monkey mindedness: Dwelling at length on a situation and ‘awfulising’
the circumstances.
3. Old, outgrown ideas: Believing that you must always act in ways that you
have in the past, even when the circumstances might prove otherwise.
4. Wrongheaded Righteousness: The need to be ‘right’ at all costs.

3. G ET TI NG UN HO OK E D

Dr David describes ‘bottlers’ and ‘brooders’ when it comes to getting

unhooked. Bottlers refuse to acknowledge negative emotions. Brooders
spend altogether too much time dwelling on them. The bottler’s emotions
are suppressed until they explode outwards when the pressure becomes
too much. The brooder’s emotions overwhelm them and drag them down.
Dr David says that finding a happy medium is the best way to become
unhooked. Accept negative emotions for what they are, let yourself feel
them but don’t let them take over. Doing this can help you to find the best
way to move forward.

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4 . SHOW I NG UP

It is important to accept and acknowledge emotions as they arise. This is

what Dr David calls ‘showing up’. Showing up to your emotions can allow
8 B IG IDE AS you to feel what you need to feel as well as working through your negative
emotions. Showing up lets you validate your feelings. Whether they are
appropriate or not, they are your feelings and you are entitled to feel them.

5. STEP PI NG OUT

Stepping out is the next element. After allowing yourself to feel your
feelings, showing up requires you to face them. Stepping out reminds you
to take an objective view and assess your emotions. This can help you filter
feelings that may not be entirely appropriate and to find ways to deal with
what you are feeling. When you step out objectively, you are in control of
your feelings and not the other way around.

6 . WA LKI NG YOUR W H Y

‘Walking your why’ means discovering what is important to you and acting
accordingly. When you walk your why, you live by your personal values as
closely as you possibly can. Living by your values will help to make your life
more meaningful and satisfying. While it is not always possible to work or
live the exact life you wish, there is usually a way to make your life or job fit
better within your values.

7. TI N Y TW E AKS

Small tweaks make the journey towards walking your why easier. You can
find ways to make your work more fulfilling by finding what it is about your
job that fits your values, finding ways to expand your job to fit your values
or, if all else fails, working out a way to move on. Rather than brooding or
bottling negative emotions around a life situation that you find
unsatisfactory, make a tiny tweak. Talk to your boss or your partner and
work on a change that will improve your quality of life.

8. THE SEE - SAW PR I NCI PLE

In life, you need to find the fine line between challenge and boredom. The
see-saw principle is about finding that balance. If you find yourself in over
your head, you need to seek help or support. On the other hand, if your
level of competence makes you bored or complacent it is time to find ways
to increase the challenges in your life. A fulfilling life means enjoying
challenge without being overwhelmed. In fact, David says that ‘whelmed’
is the best place to be!

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Emotional Agility presents methods to live life to its fullest by rejecting

emotional rigidity. Here are three keys steps to achieving this:

1 . AC C EPT AN D E MBR ACE YOUR E MOTION S

3 AC T ION STEP S

Everyone has emotions! It is a part of who we are. Learning to accept this is

the first step to becoming emotionally agile.

If you are ruled by your emotions or spend all your time trying to stay on
top of them, you are displaying emotional rigidity. Pain is a part of life just
as much as happiness.

2 . STEP AWAY FR OM YOUR E MOTION S

Once you have stepped away from your emotions, see them objectively
then try to find the most appropriate ways to react.

Think of yourself as the chessboard, awash with possible moves, not as a

single piece confined to a single pattern

3. LI V E BY W H AT I S I MPOR TAN T TO YOU

After analysing your emotions, turn them to work towards your values. Live
your life the way you believe you should and find ways to tweak life to fit
what you value most.

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With Emotional Agility, Susan David’s aim is to help you live the life that
you want.

You should appoint yourself the agent of your own life while accepting
1 KE Y TA K EAWAY your full self. Feel your emotions but don’t allow them to rule you.
Allowing this agility lets you make the most of your emotions by using
them to learn what you really value.

Once you have understood what it is that you value, don’t be afraid to
move forward and tweak things as opportunities arise. Mould your life
to your values, not the other way around. Emotional agility is a method
to let go of preconceptions and static thinking and to work towards a
better life.

Take what life brings and make the most of it. By ‘turning up’ and
stepping out’ you can enjoy the good times and weather the bad. As a
friend of David’s with the life-changing disease ALS said, “Dance when
you can.”

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